Quote from: Mr Felt on January 11, 2016, 09:39:01 PM

Quote from: VeritasSapere on January 11, 2016, 08:15:16 PM

Quote from: Quantus on January 11, 2016, 07:30:32 PM

Quote from: VeritasSapere on January 11, 2016, 07:24:25 PM

There is this idea that we must choose between settlement network or payment network, this is a false dichotomy, a false choice. Bitcoin can be both of these things and more, they actually reinforce each other in a synergistic fashion. By attempting to put one above the other you are actually breaking both.

Bitcoin is and can be many different things to different people, there are many coders and engineers who think that we can scale Bitcoin, therefore I think that we should, even if Core thinks that we should not, their reasons for not doing so remains ideological and I have a distinctly different vision for Bitcoin which also happens to align closer to the original vision of its founder as well. I am sure that there are many people that did originally sign up for this original vision and do not appreciate this bait and switch.

I appreciate most of the work done by Core but I do not want a technocratic group of engineers and coders to dictate to us what Bitcoin should become and what its economic policy should be, this should be determined by the market itself instead. I rather have the engineers remind us ideologues of what is possible so that we can then pursue our dreams to create a better world. It is not impossible to increase the blocksize limit, so I reject the notion that we must choose between settlement layer or payment network now.

I think we all want the same thing we deffer only on how to get to that promised land. For some the path is clear, larger blocks. For me and others the path we walk of larger and larger blocks with insufficient fees leads to network collapse.

If the blocks become larger it implies that there is increased adoption and use of Bitcoin. A high volume of low fee transactions over the long run would actually pay out more for the miners compared to a high volume of low fee transactions. The idea that if we increase the blocksize over time as the technology allows as it improves would lead to the network collapsing is not supported by the facts.

If we had a sixty four megabyte blocksize limit for instance with the same fees per transaction payed out today it would already exceed the present block reward. It is not impossible to have blocks this large, in a decade from now it might even seem trivial. It would even take BIP101 eight years to reach this point, and the newly proposed Bitcoin Classic more then twelve years. Most of the other blocksize limit increase proposals are even more conservative then this, which is fine. My point being is that a high volume of low value transactions can pay for the networks security and this would not lead to the network collapsing as you claim, especially as the limit is slowly increased as our technology improves.

Your post, which I tend to agree with, raises a related question I have.

In a world where the block size is capped at X and demand for block space is greater than X, there are no guarantees a particular transaction broadcast to the network will settle/verify. In that world, a transaction verifies I.F.F. its included in a block, which may be due in large part to the fee paid rather than the order of broadcasting. So, there is uncertainty with these transactions RE: settlement completition and time of settlement. Now also imagine this capped block size world is one where folks think Bitcoin should be a settlement network for high-dollar transactions like houses, land, cars, etc. and not everyday purchases. Consider that often times, these types of big-ticket purchases also involve a title transfer/registration with and of the property purchased, and that title transfers are often based in law going back centuries (just look at any jurisdiction's real property statutes - including statutes on conveyancing and recording; common law; and the UCC on the perfection of security interests). Hint: Time of conveyance/recording is critical to perfecting a property right. So, in this world, where timing is everything, what professional is going to recommend using bitcoin to facilitate the transaction with so much uncertainty? I think everyone interested in the block size debate outcome, whatever position that is, would really benefit from taking a step back and thinking about who the end user is supposed to be and how the Bitcoin protocol is supposed to compliment and work with existing businesses, industries, customs, and laws (its not going to work to just burn everything and start over from nothing).

This is a good observation, in effect what this means is that transacting on the Bitcoin blockchain would become much more unreliable if we allow the network to become overloaded by letting the blocks fill up. I have always said this, this is in part why not increasing the blocksize limit would lead to Bitcoin becoming a much worse user experience compared to today, this would also not be good for adoption.

Quote from: Jeff Garzik

Further, wallet software User experience is very, very poor in a hyper-competitive fee market.